As always I have fallen behind in my posting and have some catching up to do.  We had some illness, and then celebrated Thanksgiving.  On Thanksgiving we went to my grandparents house and spent time with my family.  We ate yummy food and went for a walk on the farm, which of course I forgot to take pictures of, but I did get this great one of baby girl and grandma.

 

 

Then the day after we celebrated at home with Kevin's parents and Dravyn cooked corn casserole and green bean casserole.  She did great and only stirred stuff out of the bowl about 18 times.  Then after we ate we all watched Red 2.  It was a fun Thanksgiving.

 

Of course there was decorating.  The first year we decorated the outside of the house. We also put up the tree, and we helped decorate at the church.

 

 Then we all got sick again, like miserable sick. Dravyn got one month closer to 3, and gave me many, many looks like this one.

 

The last weekend I somehow pulled off a very homemaker type weekend, which is usually something I fail miserably at.  However I managed to bake Christmas goodies, and we made ornaments for the tree, inspired by Pinterest of course.

 

 

I actually have all the shopping and wrapping done already.  Now I am just waiting for Christmas day.  I love Christmas morning and am looking forward to Dravyn getting her gifts.  I think that she is really going to enjoy this year.

October, November, December

Dravyn was a painter for Halloween, she made her own costume and decided to sleep in it the next night.  It was a pretty fun night at the Church's Fall Festival that night.  She played some of the games, and an older girl helped her climb up to go down the slide in the blowup bounce house.  She has been asking all week to go to the bouncy park and doesn't seem to understand that it isn't there anymore.

 

 

 

 

It's a week into November and I am already thinking of December and Christmas already.  I am looking everyday for the little things that remind me of winter, like the sun setting earlier and frozen mornings.

 

The Case of The Missing Campers A.K.A. Halloween Campout 2013

It was a cold and rainy Friday afternoon when we arrived at the campsite.  We helped set up the canopy not a thing went wrong, it definitely didn't take us two tries and a lot of confusion, nope it didn't.  Then we set up our tent and tried to stay dry the rest of the night. We failed.

Fast forward to the next day, that's when I saw it.  An empty ring of chairs, seemingly abandoned mid use.  Where had the campers gone?

I went on a mission to find them, those missing people that surely had a good reason for leaving the warmth of the fire.  Eventually I found them, feeling reassured that I was not alone to fend for myself.

I found them being Superheroes.

 

Helping find firewood to keep us warm.

 

 

Spending time as a tree.

 

 

 

Snuggling with the youngest camper.

 

 

 

And talking with sisters.

 

 

I found the campers playing guitar in the fire light.

 

And being with the ones they love. 

 

 

The case of the missing campers was solved.  None of us froze, we all ate too much, and spent time with people we don't often get to see.  I was glad to spend time there, and am glad to be home to sleep in my warm bed, and to spend time with our puppy dogs.

 

 

 

A pumpkin patch, but no pumpkins.

I have wanted to go to a corn maze since the first time I heard of them.  I finally got my chance.  We went to the cider mill where they have a children's play area, a pumpkin patch, and a corn maze.  I was  very happy to have a family fun day because we seemed to have spent the last month home sick.  It was a spur of the moment decision.  Kevin had been talking about wanting to go to the cider mill and as we sat around Saturday morning trying to decide what to do that sounded like the most enjoyable option, so 30 minutes later we were in the car headed out.

Now here is the truth about taking your child to this sort of thing.  It takes  much longer to pack and head out the door than it would if you weren't taking them along.  You risk meltdowns over having to stand in line or being too small for something they really want to do.  And inevitably the one thing you really REALLY want to do, oh lets just say the corn maze, is the one thing that will not hold their interest longer than 30 seconds and you will have to go find something more entertaining for them.  However, it is 180% worth it to see how excited your kid gets when they get to go inside a Teepee, feed a goat, walk across a bridge to nowhere, or get to experience their first hayride.  I wouldn't miss that for anything, even getting to go through the whole maze.

 

 

 

 

I smell a yearly tradition in the making.  Oh and by the way, she looked at the pumpkin patch, but couldn't be convinced to pick one hence the title of this post.  But have no fear always using our resources wisely, we spent the pumpkin money on a second dozen cider donuts.

Fall Leaves Project Day!

I have been wanting to make some fall leave décor for awhile now.  This morning I decided today is the day and off we went on our walk with our basket to collect the perfect leaves.

 

We got distracted in the back yard by a caterpillar and ended our trip with a basket full of leaves, a dandelion, an acorn, and three fallen rose petals.

 

 

So a few easy steps later, we had laminated the leaves, cut them out leaving enough room for a hole punch, punched said holes, and hung the leaves on a piece of string we had around the house.

 

 

 

Dravyn helped pick leaves, dry a couple of the wet ones we had found on the ground, and helped pick what order to put them in with just a little help from me.  I spaced them using my palm width as a measuring stick and we were done.

 

She seems pretty excited about her project and has shown it to her daddy and grandma already as soon as they walked in the house for lunch.

 

 

 

I can't wait to find more projects to do with her this fall.

 

 

She took me for a walk.

This morning Dravyn and I went for a walk.  Her in mismatched clothing and me lugging around a camera because today she was in charge.  We stopped on our walk to look at anything that grabbed her attention.  It was painfully slow, and extremely fun watching the little wheels turn in her head.

Starting our walk.

Look at all the tiny holes.

Hey mom these are pretty leaves. ( I carried them home in my camera bag for her)

"Mommy Fall." She was very concerned about that grate.



She stopped to get the rock out of her shoe.

 

 

"Mommy Bug!"

And then she squished it.

At one point she decided to sneak down the sidewalk which quickly turned to crawling.  After a little begging she walked on her knees and eventually decided to actually stand and finish the walk home.

 

 Now she is down for a nap while I relax and listening to the rain outside of the open windows.  I hope that she enjoyed our walk.  I know I did.

I'm pretty sure I've said this before but....

I LOVE FALL.  Fall and winter are my favorite seasons of the year.  Technically the 22nd is the real start of fall, I can't stand coffee products even if they are pumpkin spice and from a nice coffee shop, and the temperature seems determined to stay in the 90's.  Even though all of those things are true, I still can feel fall coming.

It feels like fall because this is the view I have through the window above the sink as I wash dishes.

And I made a double batch of homemade no bake cookies last night.



Do cookies somehow become healthy if you use fruits and veggies to hold down the edge of your wax paper?

The random cool mornings over the last week and a half assure me that summer will soon be gone and I will start preparations for family camp outs, Christmas shopping, and switching our outside play time from early mornings to mid-day.  Soon the walks we take will be punctuated with the sound of crunching leaves under our feet, and the trees will turn from green to yellow, orange, red and brown.

This fall is going to be amazing indeed.